New research, led by Dr Petra Holden from the African Climate and Development Initiative (ACDI), has shown how catchment restoration - through the management of alien tree infestation in the mountains of the southwestern Cape - could have lessened the impact of climate change on low river flows during the Cape Town “Day Zero” drought.
Climate change is impacting extreme weather events such as droughts and floods. Nature-based solutions, such as catchment restoration, involve working with ecosystems and landscapes to address societal challenges. These challenges include the impacts of climate change on water resources. Up to now, studies have not separated the role of nature-based solutions in reducing the human-driven climate change impacts of extreme events on water availability from that of natural climate variability.
Wanting to inform water resource adaptation planning, this new study by an all-southern African based research team published in a Nature portfolio journal, Communications Earth & Environment, set out to do this using the Cape Town Day Zero drought as an example. Their focus was on a typical type of catchment restoration in South Africa - invasive alien tree management.
“Invasive alien trees have higher transpiration rates, compared to the native vegetation of the Cape mountains, and thus reduce streamflow”, explained lead author Dr Petra Holden.
Read more at University of Cape Town
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